How to Become a More Creative Photographer

Dear friend,

Some real thoughts on creativity:

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What is a photographer?

First of all- let us ask, what is a photographer?

I say a photographer is a child who loves to create images. I think even as a kid, I loved to look at mechanical things and robots and such, and sketch and imitate and copy them onto another sheet of paper. I drew in order to understand, deconstruct and find delight in the details.

What does ‘creative’ even mean?

To be creative means:

To delight in creating things.

The creative photographer then is someone who just uses the camera as his/her magical wand, to create. Consider how much delight we saw in the magic of photography in the early days, and even later when digital cameras (with LCD screens) were first invented. Now we take it for granted like clean water or clean air.

Thus we must return to our childlike selves and see photography as truly something magical.

Some thoughts

Some practical creative thoughts:

Feel free to use any filters, effects, glitching things to apply to your images. I love using Procreate on iPad/iPhone to ‘glitch’ my images, or add gradients (crimson red) to my images.
Feel free to sketch and draw on your images. Use your phone to screenshot your images, then draw on top of them (can be done both on iPhone and Android).
Unleash yourself from any genre or notion of ‘consistency’. Consistency is a trap. The true creator sees more inter-connections between things, rather than boundaries.
Pursue other modes of creative outpression: Abstract art, zen calligraphy (Zen Brush 2 or Zen Brush 3). Procreate to make digital art works. Get into analogue water coloring, or acrylic paints. Or just sketch on napkins! To draw will improve your photography and vice-versa. And no notions of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ drawings. No more need for photo-realistic drawings … after all, we got the camera for that!